Any consequence is too much
As much as I try to vacuum up every bit of information from my local newspaper, I often overlook juicy tidbits. That’s why I’m happy for sharp-eyed WAW readers such as the one who alerted me to this story about the apartment complex in Carrboro that is under fire for towing cars from its parking lot.
The complex requires residents to get a parking sticker, and has started towing vehicles that don’t have them. As the News & Observer reported:
Last week, Hispanic residents protested, making signs and in one case throwing a bottle at a tow truck. They say the policy is unfair to illegal immigrants who may lack the paperwork that management also requires for a sticker. The Orange County Office of Human Rights and Relations is looking at the issue.
You don’t have to bring a semiotician’s intensity to that paragraph to see the utter absurdity of the situation. Nor should you be the least bit surprised that the Orange County Office of Human Rights and Relations is prepared, at the least, to entertain the idea that even the minor consequence of not getting a parking sticker is too harsh a penalty for illegal immigration. (By the way, the very existence of that office makes me think we’re much closer to those notorious Canadian kangaroo courts of political correctness than I realized).
The subject line on my tipster’s email message was: “They’ve got to be kidding.”
They’re not.